FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Feb. 10, 2006
SAN DIEGO — Ashbel Smith Professor Emeritus of Surgery James C. Thompson was honored with the Lifetime Achievement award of the Society of University Surgeons during the group’s annual Academic Surgery meeting in San Diego on February 9. The award celebrates his long record of achievement in academic surgery and his dedication to surgical research.
A San Antonio native, Thompson received his B.S. degree from the Agriculture and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) in 1948. He earned his medical degree at UTMB in 1951, followed by an internship at UTMB. His residency training in surgery was performed at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Thompson served from 1954-1956 in the United States Army Medical Corps, first on the surgical service at Valley Forge Army Hospital and later as a medical officer in Munich, Germany. Subsequently, he became an instructor in surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1958. In 1961, he was promoted to assistant professor of surgery there and received a prestigious National Institutes of Health Career Development Award.
In 1963, Dr. Thompson was recruited to Harbor General Hospital as an associate professor of surgery at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine and promoted to professor of surgery there in 1967. In 1970, he returned to UTMB as chief of surgery and as professor and John Woods Harris Chairman of the Department of Surgery from 1970 to 1995.
A consummate academic surgeon, role model and mentor, Dr. Thompson’s primary research has centered on gastrointestinal (GI) endocrinology and physiology, with clinical interests in the Zollinger Ellison Syndrome and effects of aging on GI function. His work has contributed immeasurably to the field, and he has been recognized by his many colleagues for demonstrating extraordinary dedication to surgical research and for his role as a mentor in the development of young surgical investigators. Continuously funded with grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for over 40 years, Dr. Thompson in 1986 received a MERIT Award from the NIH. He has authored more than 1,000 publications, most in the areas of gastrointestinal hormones and physiology.
Dr. Thompson’s accomplishments are many: He has been awarded memberships in numerous academic, regional, national and international medical associations and societies and has held leadership positions in many of these groups. He has served as president of the American Surgical Association, the James IV Association of Surgeons, the Society of Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, the Society for Surgical Chairman, the Southern Surgical Association, the Texas Surgical Society and the American College of Surgeons. In recognition for his extraordinary dedication to surgical research and to the nurturing of young surgical investigators, the 1993 Surgical Forum was dedicated to Dr. Thompson and, in 1996, American College of Surgeons presented him its highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award. In 2001, Dr. Thompson received the Dr. Rodman E. Sheen and Thomas G. Sheen Award which honors physicians who, in their lifetimes, have significantly contributed to furthering medicine and medical research. In 2000, Dr. Thompson was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and also to the American Philosophical Society.
Throughout his career, Dr. Thompson has held more than 200 Visiting Lectureships and Professorships across the nation and abroad. He was the US-USSR Health Exchange Professor in 1973 and was named Honorary Professor for Life at the University of Beijing in 1991.
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Media Hotline (409) 772-6397
Tom Curtis tcurtis@utmb.edu